Companies all over the world are outsourcing technical support to make technical assistance available whenever their customers need it. Outsourced tech support services are usually handled via phone, email, online chat, or SMS, but there are newer channels where the public can get help for their tech-related problems. Through these emerging services, companies can make tech help not just accessible round-the-clock, but also visually descriptive, proactive, and mobile.

Here are three new services that can improve your technical support:

Video technology

Video tools such as Google Helpouts can connect your customers with experts through a live interactive video discussion about your products and services.
Here, your customers can ask questions live and get answers from your tech experts instantaneously. Also, Google Helpouts allows your customers to schedule video viewings for later and browse previously discussed topics.

Social media

Social networking sites are increasingly used by businesses not just for marketing purposes, but also for answering queries, processing requests, and solving problems sent by the online public. More than being convenient and fast, customer service via social media can be proactive because here, brands do not have to wait for a problem to be sent to their tech reps before its gets solved. Through the advanced searching and tracking power of social networks like Twitter, companies can see what the public is saying about their brand and fix issues that the customers haven’t reported yet.

Tech support apps

Social media is indeed an effective tool for delivering technical support, but it is in public domain, so the rest of the Internet can view negative content about your company that users put on your brand’s page. This may tarnish reputations, so mobile apps such as Desk are developed to provide a “universal inbox” or “mobile helpdesk” where consumers and businesses can hash out product concerns.  Moving your firm’s technical support to a customer service app will be a bankable investment because the use of handheld devices is expected to surpass desktop use by 2014 .
In today’s evolving business landscape, companies should be on the lookout for innovations that can improve industry performance and cater to the customers’ ever-changing needs.